Glenn Beck Part One

Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck is famous for launching verbal grenades, and he did so again in recent days, calling upon church members to flee congregations that promote social justice. His comments incited an immediate controversy, where far more heat than light has yet been evident. As expected, there is more to this story than meets the eye - or may reach the ear via the public conversation.During his March 2, 2010 radio broadcast, Beck said this: " I beg you, look for the words "social justice" or "economic justice" on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If I'm going to Jeremiah's Wright's church? Yes! Leave your church. Social justice and economic justice. They are code words. If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop and tell them, "Excuse me are you down with this whole social justice thing?" I don't care what the church is. If it's my church, I'm alerting the church authorities: "Excuse me, what's this social justice thing?" And if they say, "Yeah, we're all in that social justice thing," I'm in the wrong place. " Almost immediately, reaction statements emerged with furor, found in press releases and public statements made by figures like Sojourner's editor Jim Wallis and various social justice advocacy groups. Like Captain Renault in Casablanca, various media outlets rounded up the "usual suspects." The resultant public conversation has not been very substantial, but it has offered media magnetism. Some of those outraged by Beck's statements immediately insisted that social justice is the very heart of the Gospel, while others insisted with equal force that Beck had offered a courageous call for Christians to flee liberal churches that had abandoned the Gospel. As anyone familiar with incendiary public debates should have expected, the truth is a bit harder to determine, but issue is indeed worth whatever hard thinking a clarification of the issue requires. Is Glenn Beck right? That is the question most in the media were asking, along with a good number of Christians who were aware of the debate. With just a few words, Beck, a convert to Mormonism, set the world of American religion into a frenzy of discourse. At first glance, Beck's statements are hard to defend. How can justice, social or private, be anything other than a biblical mandate? A quick look at the Bible will reveal that justice is, above all, an attribute of God himself. God is perfectly just, and the Bible is filled with God's condemnation of injustice in any form. The prophets thundered God's denunciation of social injustice and the call for God's people to live justly, to uphold justice, and to refrain from any perversion of justice. The one who pleases the Lord is he who will "keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice" (Gen. 18:19). Israel is told to "do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness you shall judge your neighbor" (Lev. 19:15). God "has established his throne for justice" (Psalm 9:7) and "loves righteousness and justice" (Psalm 33:5). Princes are to "rule in justice" (Is. 32:1) even as the Lord "will fill Zion with justice and righteousness" (Is. 33:5). In the face of injustice, the prophet Amos thundered: "But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (Amos 5:18). In a classic statement, Micah reminded Israel: "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8). To assert that a call for social justice is reason for faithful Christians to flee their churches is nonsense, given the Bible's overwhelming affirmation that justice is one of God's own foremost concerns. There is more going on here, much more. Glenn Beck's statements lacked nuance, fair consideration, and context. It was reckless to use a national media platform to rail against social justice in such a manner, leaving Beck with little defense against a tidal wave of biblical mandates.A closer look at his statements reveals a political context. He made a specific reference to Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Obama's Old Pastor) and to other priests or preachers who would use "social justice" and "economic justice" as "code words." Is there anything to this?Of course there is. Regrettably, there is no shortage of preachers who have traded the Gospel for a platform of political and economic change, most often packaged as a call for social justice.The immediate roots of this phenomenon go back to the mid-nineteenth century, when figures like Washington Gladden, a Columbus, Ohio pastor, promoted what they called a new "social gospel." Gladden was morally offended by the idea of a God who would offer his own Son as a substitutionary sacrifice for sinful humanity and, as one of the founders of liberal theology in America, offered the social gospel as an alternative message, complete with a political agenda. It was not social reform that made the social gospel liberal, it was, its theological message. As Gary Dorrien, the preeminent historian of liberal theology, asserts, the distinctive mark of the social gospel was "its theology of social salvation."Even more famously, the social gospel would be identified with Walter Rauschenbusch, a liberal figure of the early twentieth century. Rauschenbusch made his arguments most classically in his books, Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) and Theology for the Social Gospel (1917). In a 1904 essay, "The New Evangelism," Rauschenbusch called for a departure from "the old evangelism" which was all about salvation from sin through faith in Christ, and for the embrace of a "new evangelism" which was about salvation from social ills and injustice in order to realize, at least partially, the Kingdom of God on earth. He called for Christian missions to be redirected in order to "Christianize international politics." Both, as far as I can tell are the cream of the false doctrine crop.The last century has seen many churches and denominations embrace the social gospel in some form, trading the Gospel of Christ for a liberal vision of social change, revolution, economic liberation, and, yes, even social justice. Does this mean that all forms of Social and Economic Justice is a vile lie from Hell? No. The message of the bible is clear. Anything that deters from the very clear message of Christ is false. Anything that takes away the light of heaven and the gift of Eternal Life promised us, is a lie from Lucifer.The urgency for any faithful Christian is this - flee any church that for any reason or in any form has abandoned the Gospel of Christ for any other gospel. In some cases it might be hard to spot initially. That's where prayer and faith come in. Read your bible, Pray in your closet at night, or whenever. Ask God to show you and to give you the wisdom you need to stay firm in your walk, and to avoid the temptations and wiles of the demonic spirit of this world. Resist the Devil, and he shall flee from you.As I read the statements of Glenn Beck, it seems that his primary concern is political. Speaking to a national audience, he warned of "code words" that betray a leftist political agenda of big government, liberal social action, economic redistribution, and the confiscation of wealth. In that context, his loyal audience almost surely understood his point. My concern is very different. As a Christian, my concern is the primacy of the Gospel of Christ - the Gospel that reveals the power of God in the salvation of sinners through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. (...I am THE way, THE Truth, and THE Life...)The church's main message must be that Gospel. The New Testament is stunningly silent on any plan for governmental or social action. The apostles launched no social reform movement. Instead, they preached the Gospel of Christ and planted Gospel churches. Our task is to follow Christ's command and the example set forth by the apostles.There is more to that story, however. The church is not to adopt a social reform platform as its message, but the faithful church, wherever it is found, is itself a social reform movement precisely because it is populated by redeemed sinners who are called to faithfulness in following Christ. The Gospel is not a message of social salvation, but it does have social implications. Anyone who has become saved and filled with his Holy Spirit know what I am referring to. The Old Nature dies out, and a new one begins. The New Man, the new Nature. With only one goal: To save sinners from hell.Faithful Christians can debate the proper and most effective means of organizing the political structure and the economic markets. Bringing all these things into submission to Christ is no easy task, and Gospel must not be tied to any political system, regime, or platform. Justice is our concern because it is God's concern, but it is no easy task to know how best to seek justice in this fallen world.And that brings us to the fact that the Bible is absolutely clear that injustice will not exist forever. There is a perfect social order coming, but it is not of this world. The coming of the Kingdom of Christ in its fullness spells the end of injustice and every cause and consequence of human sin. We have much work to do in this world, but true justice will be achieved only by the consummation of God's purposes and the perfection of God's own judgment.Until then, the church must preach the Gospel, and Christians must live out its implications. We must resist and reject every false gospel and tell sinners of salvation through Jesus Christ. And, knowing that God's judgment is coming, we must strive to be on the right side of justice. Even though we are still imperfect beings, we are forgiven when we stumble and fall. Repenting is a good thing. Something all can learn from doing that as often as possible. As long as you pray, have faith, read the Word, and keep looking up you will know that the ONE true God is in control even when it seems nothing but chaos rules. Much tragedy has occurred, and there is more to come. Remember that he loves us all and wants none to suffer.Glenn Beck's statements about social justice demonstrate the limits of our public discourse. The issues raised by his comments and the resultant controversy are worthy of our most careful thinking and most earnest struggle. Yet, the media, including Mr. Beck, will have moved on to any number of other flash-points before the ink has dried on this kerfluffle. Seriously minded Christians cannot move on from this issue so quickly. Pray. Read. Believe. God knows. Above all else, HE is in control.Part Two: Coming Soon.-- Sincerely Daniel Cox MWS INC.

Latest fan comments

Log in to alivenotdead.com with one of these trusted providers

NOTE: Users of the original website please Click here to reactivate your account.

New users - Join the alivenotdead.comcommunity instantly by confirming your identity with a trusted authentication service.

Returning users - Please use with the same authentication service to login to your alivenotdead.com account.

First time users can create a new account from scratch by authenticate using any of the following trusted services:

WARNING: If you disconnect all your social media accounts your profile will be locked and you will not be able to access it again. If you want to keep your page, please add another social media account and then remove this one.

If you understand the risks, click this box to deauthorize your account.